Red-light cameras — controversial traffic enforcement devices that can ding an unsuspecting motorist for $500 a pop for minor infractions like illegally turning right on red — are slowly fading to black.

For the first time since they were introduced in the 1980s, statistics show a large drop in the number of cities and counties using the photo enforcement systems. Yet many smaller cities are hanging onto the programs to keep the revenues they raise.

According to a not-yet-released report on red-light cameras from the Reason Foundation, the number of communities with red-light cameras in the United States has dropped from about 700 in 2011 to 500 at the end of 2013. In the South Bay, Gardena was the first city to end the program in 2011. Hawthorne considered removing its cameras in 2012 but decided to keep them at least through next year. Inglewood plans to cancel its program next month.

Statewide, 60 cities and counties have ended red-light camera programs, more than the number presently using them — about 51, said Jay Beeber, a researcher writing the report on red-light cameras for the libertarian-leaning think tank and also executive director of the group Safer Streets LA and a member of a subcommittee of the California Traffic Control Devices Committee, authorized by Caltrans to study reforms.

Declining revenues, a nonsupportive court system and increases rather than decreases in the number of accidents are the major reasons why cities have pulled the plug on red-light cameras in the past two years.

Some city council members and city traffic engineers interviewed said photo enforcement is causing more rear-end accidents because people are scared when they see a yellow light at a camera-controlled intersection and slam on their brakes.

That was one of several reasons the Gardena City Council unanimously ended its contract with Redflex Traffic Systems Inc. two years ago. At the time, officials said the system cost the city about $35,000 a month but resulted in no noticeable decrease in traffic collisions, which ostensibly was the reason for setting them up in the first place.

“The financial hole that is being created, in addition to the lack of evidence that the program is, in fact, being effective,” Gardena Mayor Paul Tanaka said, listing the reasons he voted to end the program.

At one intersection in Los Angeles, which stopped using red-light cameras in 2011, Beeber said statistics showed an 80 percent increase in rear-end collisions. Murrieta reported a 325 percent increase in rear-end collisions after red-light cameras were installed, according to the state Legislature. Both cities have scrapped their programs. In Murrieta, 87 percent of voters approved a ballot measure calling for removal of the cameras. The courts later overturned the measure.

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In Walnut, rear-end collisions increased by 80 percent at the photo-enforced intersection of Grand Avenue and Amar/Temple Avenue, according to Beeber’s report.

The city staff said the increase in rear-end collisions was a worthwhile trade-off for fewer broadside collisions. But Beeber said there was only one fewer broadside accident.

Los Angeles and Pasadena removed all of their red-light cameras within the past two years. Both cited numerous reasons, but one that they had in common was declining support from the Los Angeles County Superior Court system.

The court does not report the violations to the state DMV. It is not attached to a person’s driving record and does not pop up when a driver is renewing a license or car registration, said court and city officials.

Registered drivers would receive the violations in the mail. But the courts said that was not proof the driver violated the law, only the car. That led to the nonreporting of the red-light camera violations by the courts.

Often, judges would reduce the fines or dismiss them, if the picture of the driver on the video was blurry. Since the fines are split by the state, the county and the city, residuals dropped below the cost of the program, said Norman Baculinao, traffic engineer manager with the city of Pasadena.

“Literally, the voluntary payment became the norm,” he said. “The judge exercised a lot of discretion. Sometimes the judge would give them community service and then no revenue would go to the city.”

Former Los Angeles City Councilman Dennis Zine, who voted with the majority to remove all its cameras at 32 intersections on July 31, 2011, said the program became too costly to operate. The city continued collecting fines until April 1, 2012.

Zine at the time called the program “completely wrong” and characterized it as one that was more about revenue than public safety.

In a recent phone interview, he said the city ended the program because payments to a vendor and time spent by LAPD officers reviewing videotape from the cameras outweighed the benefits. “It was costing us much more than the city was receiving from the fines,” he said.

After further analysis, Los Angeles concluded most of the fines were for people who stopped at the red light but made a right turn where a sign prohibited it. He said right turns on red, or rolling right turns, were not causing traffic collisions.

“The fine of $500 didn’t seem just and fair to the motoring public,” he said. “It was oppressive.”

Beeber said red-light cameras are ineffective and unnecessary. The best way to reduce collisions is to lengthen yellow-light times, he said.

Caltrans increased the yellow-light time at an intersection near a freeway in the Bay Area town of Fremont, a city fighting off challenges to red-light cameras. The change resulted in a 76 percent drop in straight-through red-light camera violations at that intersection, said Roger Jones, an opponent of the cameras.

As little as three-tenths of a second on yellow-light times can reduce accidents, Beeber said.

Jones said the evidence is overwhelming, but many smaller cities that have had the programs for 10 or 15 years don’t want to reverse themselves out of pride or if the revenue stream is positive. Like a prosecutor who is shown to have convicted the wrong man, they want to save face.

“To come back 13 years later and say we made a mistake? That’s like having egg on their face. It is embarrassing,” Jones said. “So instead, they spin it as keeping the city safe, but it doesn’t.”